Pirate King

I put this collection together because guzheng and metal actually speak the same language—both are about percussive attack and sustain, about finding resonance in strings under pressure. Pirate King started as an experiment: what happens when you run a guzheng through the same mindset as a metal riff? Not as decoration, but as the engine. The title track makes that clear immediately—aggressive plucking hitting the same rhythmic pocket as a distorted guitar, the Chinese instrument carrying the melody while the metal framework locks in underneath. It's not fusion in the polite sense. It's collision.

“The guzheng metal approach here treats both traditions as equal weight.”

The rest of the collection leans into that friction. Big in Japan and Captain both let the guzheng do heavy lifting in the foreground, trading space with guitars and drums rather than sitting beneath them. Komurasaki strips it back to pure instrumental tension, modal scales from traditional East Asian tuning systems grinding against modern distortion and double-kick drums. Samurai Attack lives up to its name—high-velocity, no vocals to soften the impact, just the wet-sounding attack of plucked strings meeting the wall of what a full metal kit and amplified riffs can do. The guzheng metal approach here treats both traditions as equal weight. The guzheng isn't trying to sound like a guitar. The metal isn't trying to sound like classical composition. They're occupying the same space and working out what happens.

The sound is relentless and oddly clarifying, each instrument carved out in the mix so you hear exactly where the Eastern and Western elements refuse to compromise.